34 killed in Bangladesh after death sentence to Islamist leader

Dhaka: At least 34 people were killed in Bangladesh in a wave of violence on Thursday as Islamists reacted furiously to a ruling that one of their leaders must hang for war crimes during the 1971 independence conflict.

At least 23 of them were shot in clashes between police and protesters that erupted after Delwar Hossain Sayedee, the Jamaat-e-Islami party's vice president, was found guilty of war crimes, including murder, arson and rape.

Sayedee is the third person to be convicted by the controversial domestic tribunal whose previous verdicts have also been met with outrage from Islamists who say the process is more about score settling than delivering justice.

Thursday's death toll was compiled by sources after talking to police in the 15 districts where protests turned deadly. They were the most violent political clashes in more than two decades in the impoverished country's history.

The latest unrest brought the overall death toll to 50 since the first verdict was delivered on January 21.

Among Thursday's dead were four policemen, two of whom were beaten to death after protesters hurled small homemade bombs at a police station in Gaibandha in Bangladesh's north and attacked it with sticks, local police chief Monjur Rahman said.

About 300 people, including scores of policemen, were also injured, doctors, police and local media said.

Police also reported attacks on several Hindu homes and temples by Islamists in the southern Noakhali and Chittagong districts. One old Hindu man was killed in the attack in Chittagong, district police chief Hafiz Akter told sources.

Security forces had been braced for trouble ahead of the verdict against Sayedee, who reacted to the judgment by saying it had been influenced by "atheists" and pro-government protesters who have been demanding his execution.

Sayedee, now best known in Bangladesh as a firebrand preacher, was convicted for setting ablaze 25 houses in a Hindu village and abetting the murders of two people including a Hindu man, according to a copy of the verdict.

He led a pro-Pakistani militia who abducted three Hindu sisters and raped them for three days at a Pakistani camp, said the verdict. He also forced at least 100 Hindus to convert to Islam and made them say Islamic prayers, it added.

His lawyer Tajul Islam described the verdict as "a gross miscarriage of justice", adding that Sayedee did not live in the town at the time when the alleged crimes took place.

Under a newly amended war crimes law, the appeal process must be completed within 90 days, meaning Sayedee would be hanged later this year if the country's highest court upholds the verdict.

Rival protesters at a central Dhaka intersection erupted in jubilation as news of Sayedee's sentence filtered through. "We've been waiting for this day for the last four decades," a protester told Somoy TV.

There was no immediate reaction from Jamaat to the verdict, but the party has enforced a nationwide strike demanding a halt to the trials.

The cases against eight more Jamaat leaders are still being heard.

Earlier this month, the tribunal a local court with no international oversight sentenced Jamaat's assistant secretary general Abdul Quader Molla to life imprisonment.

While angering Jamaat supporters, that verdict also enraged secular protesters, tens of thousands of whom have since poured onto the Shahbag intersection in central Dhaka to demand the execution of Jamaat leaders.

In January the tribunal handed down its first verdict when it sentenced fugitive Muslim TV preacher Maolana Abul Kalam Azad to death.

The tribunal has been tainted by controversies and allegations that it is targeting only the opposition with trumped-up charges. Rights groups say its legal procedures fall short of international standards.

A judge presiding over Sayedee's case resigned after leaked internet calls showed there was collusion between him and the prosecution. A key defence witness was also abducted from the court premises by policemen, allege Sayedee's lawyers.

The government rejects the accusations, saying the tribunal is independent and the trials are fair and necessary to heal the wounds of the war that it says killed three million people.

It accuses Jamaat leaders of being part of pro-Pakistani militias blamed for much of the 1971 carnage.

Independent estimates put the war toll much lower, between 300,000 and 500,000

Six Prisoners Executed in Iran- Four of the Executions Carried Out in Public

Thursday 28 February 2013

Iran Human Rights, February 28: Six prisoners were hanged in three different Iranian cities reported the Iranian state media. Four of the prisoners were hanged in public.Four prisoners hanged publicly in Gachsaran (western Iran) today:
According to the official Iranian news agency IRNA four prisoners were hanged publicly in Gachsaran (western Iran) today February 28. The prisoners were convicted of a rape in 2007 and were 22-26 years old, said the report. The report didn’t mention whether the youngest prisoner was 22 year old at the time of committing the offence or at the time of the execution. A local website identified the prisoners as "Kianoosh Anbazpour", "Yahya Bei’atpanah", "Sajjad Soltani" and "Shahzad Basiri". Iran Human Rights is investigating this matter as one of the prisoners executed today might be a juvenile offender.One prisoner was hanged in Semnan (northern Iran) today:
The official website of the Iranian judiciary in Semnan reported that one prisoner identified as "R. Kh." was hanged in the prison of Semnan this morning. The prisoner was convicted of possession and trafficking of 1163 grams of crack, said the report.One prisoner was hanged in the prison of Kashan (central Iran) yesterday:
According to te Iranian state media a 31 year old prisoner was hanged in the prison of Kashan Wednesday morning (yesterday). The prisoner who was identified by name was convicted of trafficking 3 kilograms of heroin in 2010, said the report.

El Paso police: Woman was
allegedly found drunk, asleep at the wheel in car with child passenger

By Aaron Bracamontes / El Paso Timeselpasotimes.com

Posted: 02/28/2013 01:15:28 PM MST

Kassandra Michelle Meza
(Provided by El Paso police)

A woman was allegedly found drunk
and asleep at the wheel of her car, with a child passenger.
Kassandra Michelle Meza, 22, was arrested on suspicion of driving while
intoxicated and possession of marijuana.
Police said they saw her car at about 1:01 a.m. in middle of the road at a
traffic light on the 1900 block of George Dieter and Montwood.
The light was green and the car was not moving, so officers approached the
car and allegedly found Meza intoxicated and asleep, while the keys were in the
ignition and the engine was running.
A child under the age of 15 was inside the car, police said.
Police said they also found a clear plastic baggie with .21 ounces of
marijuana inside Meza's undergarments.
She was booked into El Paso County Jail on a $1,800 bond.
Aaron Bracamontes may be reached at abracamontes@elpasotimes.com; 546-6156.
Follow him on Twitter @AaronBrac.

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• Public safety: Under sequestration, U.S.
Customs and Border Protection would also have to lay off more than 7,000
officers and agents, undermining border security efforts across the country and
in Southern Arizona. The Department of Justice also would be forced lay off
approximately 1,000 federal agents and 1,300 correctional officers at the Bureau
of Prisons.

TERRORISTS

•Defense: The Department of Defense would have to
reduce all garrison and training budgets by more than 20 percent and cut $3
billion from defense health programs. Reducing military readiness and targeting
service members’ hard-earned benefits is not the way to cut military
spending.

•Health care
: More than
$1.6 billion would be cut from medical research grants through the National
Institutes for Health, our nation’s premier institution for medical research.
This would mean a reduction in research projects that aim to find treatments and
cures for devastating and costly diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's, heart
disease and diabetes. Additionally community health centers would have to stop
serving 900,000 patients as a result of cuts of $120 million, and the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention would provide 540,000 fewer doses of
vaccines.

• The University of Arizona: The University of Arizona
could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for research from NIH, the
National Science Foundation, NASA and other federal agencies. Their research
helps to create high-wage jobs in our community—we cannot afford to lose these
grants.

Everywhere I go
in my district, I hear from constituents and small businesses owners across the
political spectrum who are deeply concerned about these automatic budget cuts
going into effect. I’m concerned about these cuts and I'm also deeply
distressed by the perpetual dysfunction in Washington that has made manufactured
crises routine. Congress must act now.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Five Prisoners Were Executed For Drug-Related Charges in Iran

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Iran Human Rights, February 27: According to the official Iranian media five prisoners ave been hanged in three different Iranian cities. All the prisoners are convicted of drug-related charges.Three prisoners hanged in the prison of Qazvin on February 24:
The official website of the Iranian judiciary in Qazvin reported that three prisoners were hanged in the prison of Qazvin on Sunday February 24. The prisoners were identified as "J." (33) charged with possession of 24 grams of cannabis and 440 grams of Shisheh; "M." (32) charged with possession of 223 grams of heroin and 412 grams of Shisheh and "M." (28) charged with possessing 470 grams of Shisheh.One prisoner was haned in the prison of Behbehan, southwestern Iran:
According to the official website of the Iranian judiciary in Khuzestan one prisoner was hanged in the prison of Behbehan Sunday February 24. The prisoner was identified as "A. Gh." and was convicted of trafficking of 3485 grams of crack, said the report.One prisoner was hanged in the prison of Sari (northern Iran) today:
The official Iranian news agency IRNA reported that one prisoner was executed in the prison of Sari (northern Iran). The prisoner who was not identified by name was convicted of drug trafficking, said the report. No further details were given.

Police in inflatable rubber boats shoot at a shark off Muriwai Beach near Auckland, New Zealand.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — A shark possibly 14 feet long killed a swimmer near a popular New Zealand beach on Wednesday, then disappeared after police attempting to save the man fired gunshots at the enormous predator.
Muriwai Beach near Auckland was closed after the fatal attack, one of only about a dozen in New Zealand in the past 180 years.
Police recovered the body of the victim, identified as Adam Strange, a 46-year-old television and short film director, the New Zealand Herald said. Strange won a Crystal Bear award for best short film at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival, according to his company's website.

AP

Police comfort a woman believed to be a family member of a man attacked by a shark at Muriwai Beach near Auckland, New Zealand

The newspaper said his family issued a statement expressing their shock and requesting privacy.
Pio Mose, who was fishing at the beach, told the Herald he saw the swimmer struggle against the huge shark. He told the man to swim to the rocks, but it was too late.
"All of a sudden there was blood everywhere," Mose said. "I was shaking, scared, panicked."
Police Inspector Shawn Rutene said in a statement that the swimmer was about 650 feet offshore when the shark attacked. He said police went out in inflatable lifesaving boats and shot at the shark, which they estimated was 12 to 14 feet long.
"It rolled over and disappeared," Rutene said, without saying whether police were certain that they killed the creature.
About 200 people had been enjoying the beach during the Southern Hemisphere summer at the time of the attack. Police said Muriwai and other beaches nearby have been closed until further notice.
Police did not say what species of shark was involved in the attack. Clinton Duffy, a shark expert with the Department of Conservation, said New Zealand is a hotspot for great white sharks, and other potentially lethal species also inhabit the waters.
Attacks are rare. Duffy estimated that only 12 to 14 people have been killed by sharks in New Zealand since record keeping began in the 1830s.
"There are much lower levels of shark attacks here than in Australia," he said. "It's possibly a function of how many people are in the water" in New Zealand's cooler climate.
He said that during the Southern Hemisphere summer, sharks often come in closer to shore to feed and to give birth, although that doesn't necessarily equate to a greater risk of attack.
"Ninety-nine percent of the time they ignore people," he said. "Sometimes, people get bitten."

Chinese environmentalist beaten after calling on official to swim in
polluted creek

A Chinese environmentalist was allegedly subjected to a vicious five-hour
attack after attempting to draw attention to the putrid state of the country's
waterways by challenging a local official to swim in a creek near his home.

Chen Yuqian, a 60-year-old resident of Pailian village in Zhejiang province,
was one of at least three concerned citizens who last week called on Chinese environmental officials to
brave the rivers they were supposed to be keeping clean.

A businessman from the same province vowed to pay 200,000 yuan (around
£20,000) to his local environmental protection chief if he dared bathe in a
rubbish-clogged river near Rui'an City.

Mr Chen, a farmer who has spent the last decade fighting pollution, posted
his challenge on the internet, hoping it would trigger government action.

Instead, his daughter says he was severely beaten by a gang of baton-wielding
men at around 6am last Sunday.

"My father was alone at home," said 32-year-old Chen Xiufang. "Some 40 people
turned up in plain clothes, some holding batons. The only thing they said was:
"[You] used the internet, you always use the internet!"

"The whole thing lasted four or five hours until the police arrived. My
father got hit in the head by six or seven people, with their fists. He is now
feeling dizzy and sleeping all the time," she added, claiming the attack had
been orchestrated by local officials.
Calls to the mobile phone of the local Communist Party chief went unanswered
on Wednesday.
Ms Chen said her father had been campaigning against paper mills that he
believed were releasing toxic waste into the river near their home since 2003.
His activism began after family members started suffering from mysterious red
blisters they suspected were the result of contact with contaminated land and
water.
"No one has really ever cared about our lives or our plight," she said. "If
we can't work and live normally, and drink water safely, then what is the point
in us living at all?"
The claims come amid reports that China's environmental protection agency is
refusing to publish the findings of a nationwide survey of soil pollution
claiming the data constitutes a "state secret". It has been estimated that up to
10 per cent of Chinese farmland is contaminated with toxins such as arsenic,
lead, mercury and cadmium.
Dong Zhengwei, the Beijing lawyer trying to obtain the pollution study, said
he planned to appeal.
"Environmental protection is directly related to each of our lives and we
have no time to lose now," he said.

The family of a Palestinian prisoner who died in Israeli custody claimed on
Monday that his body bore the marks of injuries that indicated he had been
tortured to death by his jailers.

Relatives of Arafat Jaradat, 30, also accused Israeli soldiers of beating him
with rifle butts after arresting at his home in the West Bank town of Sa'eer,
near Hebron, in the early hours of February 18.

They said he screamed out in pain and shouted, "Oh mother, Oh mother" as
troops dragged him to a military jeep after arresting him for suspected militant
activity that included charges of throwing stones.

Mr Jaradat, a father-of-two, died on Saturday while in detention at Megiddo
prison in centralIsrael. Prison authorities
initially said he had died of a heart attack.

Mr Jaradat's
death further heightened rising Israeli concern over a recent wave of unrest in
the West Bank (Reuters)

The preliminary findings of an autopsy conducted by Israel's National Centre
for Forensic Medicine subsequently failed to determine the cause of death. A
summary released by the Israeli health ministry said "no signs of external
trauma were found apart from those pertaining to resuscitation [attempts]".

Using DNA To Trace Michelle Obama’s Past

mfiske | 09/12/2012

First Lady Michelle Obama always suspected that she had white ancestors. But she had no idea who they were. With DNA testing and research, I was able to solve that mystery and finally identify the white forbears who had remained hidden in her family tree for more than a century.
All across the country, growing numbers of people are turning to DNA testing as a tool to help unlock the secrets of their roots, using companies such as ancestry.com, among others. When I started researching my new book, “American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama,’’ I pored over historical documents that I found in local archives, courthouses and libraries as well as records that I found online on ancestry.com and other state and local databases. But I knew that DNA testing would be the only way to unearth the truth.
I suspected that Mrs. Obama’s white ancestors belonged to the white Shields family that had owned her great-great-great grandmother, Melvinia Shields. So I persuaded several descendants of the black and white Shields to do DNA testing.
The results showed that the two families were related. The DNA testing indicated that Melvinia’s owner’s son was the likely father of Melvinia’s biracial child, Dolphus Shields. (Dolphus Shields is the first lady’s great-great grandfather.)
This was painful news for many of the Shields descendants. They knew that that Melvinia might have been raped and that their kinship originated during slavery, one of the darkest chapters of our history.
But last month, members of both sides of the family – black and white — put aside the pain of the past. They got together for the very first time in Rex, Georgia at a ceremony to commemorate Melvinia’s life. They swapped family stories, posed for photographs, exchanged phone numbers and had a meal together.
It was something to see.
David Applin, who is Melvinia’s great-grandson, said the reunion was “wonderful.” And Jarrod Shields, who is the great-great-great grandson of Melvinia’s owner, described it as a day “my family will never forget.”

This story was contributed by guest blog author Rachel L. Swarns
Rachel L. Swarns has been a reporter for the New York Times since 1995. She has written about domestic policy and national politics, reporting on immigration, the presidential campaigns of 2004 and 2008, and First Lady Michelle Obama and her role in the Obama White House. She has also worked overseas for the New York Times, reporting from Russia, Cuba, and southern Africa, where she served as the Johannesburg bureau chief. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two children.

CCTV shows men flung into air after BMW hit-and-run in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad: The driver of a speeding black BMW abandoned the car seconds after it hit a tree, but it is the minutes before that which are recorded in chilling detail on security cameras outside a shopping complex nearby.

At midnight on Sunday, the BMW collides with a motorcycle, flinging its two riders into the air.

25-year-old Shivam Dave would die on his way to hospital minutes later. His friend, Rahul Patel, who was steering the bike, is in critical condition.

What the 20 seconds of footage do not show is the driver. The police say that after hitting the motorcycle, the driver of the BMW kept going, dragging the bikers for about 200 metres, before hurtling into a tree. At this point, they say, the driver left.

The car is owned by a local doctor, Amit Shah. He says his driver was at the wheel, and is now missing.

The young men on the motorcycle were on their way home from dinner. Two other friends were following them on a scooter. They claim they spotted the driver running away from the car.

"When the accident happened, the person who was driving came out of the car and apologised. He spoke in English. A driver wouldn't have spoken in English. I can recognise the person who was driving," Lalit Gupta, one of the two friends and an eyewitness, told NDTV.

"On Monday, he would have gone to Porbandar for further studies in engineering," said Shivam's father.

ARIZONA - The Associated Press has learned that federal immigration authorities have released a number of detainees around the country to save money.
According to the Arizona Daily Star, at least 100 were released from the Eloy Detention Center.
Gillian Christensen, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, D.C., said Monday that field offices have been directed to review their numbers of detained immigrants to ensure the jail populations stay within budgeted resources.
Christensen says an unspecified number of immigrants have been released and placed on more cost-effective forms of supervision.
She says she did not have further details about those forms of supervision or how many people have been released.
Christensen says the agency will continue to pursue the cases in court and deport people when necessary.
Immigration activists say the agency most likely released detainees in California, Texas, Florida, and New Jersey.

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

In a comment by Mike's Mother who was telling her boyfriend she did not want to move to Arizona she stated " Arizona was a furnace , full of drunk Indian's " ! She went on to say the state was full of a bunch of comanche's.

This statement should be retracted by CBS, because many people find that comment offensive.Not only to Native Americans but , it implies that the state of Arizona has only one race in it. The comment also refers to the state being full of nothing but a bunch of drunks.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Tucson man arrested on hit-and-run charges of pro cycling team

Posted: Feb 25, 2013 12:03 PM by Michael McKisson, TucsonVelo.com

Rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

One cyclist with the Jamis-Hagnes Berman cycling team was sent to the hospital and several others were injured during an assault by a Tucson motorist on Friday morning around 11 a.m.., according to a team rider.
The professional cycling team, which is in Tucson for a training camp, was on a training ride on Valencia Road between Old Vail Road and Nexus Road when they said a man in an Oldsmobile Aurora began harassing the cyclists.
Team rider Ben Jacques-Maynes said the driver shouted expletives and told them to get off the road.
Read the complete story on TucsonVelo.com.

Committee of Human Rights Reporters – According to news sources, on February 23rd, agents from the Intelligence Ministry detained Seyed Hamid Sadr Ghabadi who is an employee at Evin prison. Per the reports, Ghabadi was arrested without warning on Saturday as he was leaving his place of work. He was transferred to an undisclosed location.

Agents from the Ministry of Intelligence raided Ghabadi’s residence after detaining him and conducted a massive search of his home while being aggressive and rude towards his family. The agents confiscated his personal items including his computer, camera, books and pamphlets.

There has been no information provided yet regarding the reason for the arrest or the whereabouts of Hamid Sadr Ghabadi. According to the news sources, Ghabadi was in charge of record keeping and was working on registering profiles for new incoming prisoners at Tehran’s Evin prison.

NCRI - The Iranian regime's Cyber Police (FATA) said on Monday that had arrested a "14 year old blogger in city of Karaj" "following a surveillance activity" in order to “increase security in the cyberspace."
The commander of mullahs' Cyber Police whose remark were published in the force's website claimed that the blogger published "obscene" stories.
The Iranian regime's Cyber Police is widely infamous particularly because of its role in killing of anti-regime blogger Satar Beheshti in custody.
Beheshti was detained on October 30 for alleged "cybercrimes" and was taken to Evin prison in northern Tehran. Beheshti, 35, was handed over to police in the cybercrimes unit for interrogation and died on November 3.
Iranian regime's Cyber Police established in early 2011 is one of many organs in the mullahs vast apparatus for suppressing online activists and internet users.

A blogger arrested in Ganaveh

Sunday, 24 February 2013 18:05 admin1

HRANA News Agency – A blogger in has been arrested by Iranian cyber police (FATA) in Ganaveh a town belongs to Boushehr province.

According to a report of FATA news portal, the chief of Boushehr FATA claimed that according to a complaint from one of the official offices about disturbing the public by an unknown person in his weblog and writing unreal blogs about the officials of that office, our agents acted and started to follow up the case.

"After technical and professional investigations the accused blogger identified and arrested", The chief added.

"When accused person saw the documents then he had not any more option rather than confession to the accusation", The chief continued.

Also the chief did not mention any personal details and name of the arrested weblogger.